Royal Women's Hospital

Our Acting on the Warning Signs project with the Royal Women’s Hospital is at the forefront of the Health-Justice Partnership movement in Australia. This project is the first of its kind in a major, metropolitan hospital in Australia.

Through this partnership, our lawyers offer free legal assistance to inpatients and outpatients of the hospital. The on-site legal service is complemented with training for front-line health professionals to identify and respond to patients suffering from family violence.

An external evaluation of the Acting on the Warning Signs project conducted by the University of Melbourne in August 2014 showed that 98% of clinicians surveyed felt that the training was a positive learning experience. The evaluation also showed that several women who attended the on-site legal service “believed that receiving legal advice had a positive impact upon their psychological and emotional health immediately during or after the consultation”.

We also conducted a cross-site evaluation of our Health Justice Partnerships and the benefits it provides to the coordination of care for vulnerable patients. You can read our report here. 

For more information about the service or to make an appointment, please call 9328 1885.

You can stay up-to-date on our health justice partnership work on our news page